Speaking of COLLUSION by employing a foreign agent, or worse to have direct contact with Israeli dignitaries during the transition period as President-elect ...

○ requesting Russian veto on settlements building on Palestinian land
○ quid-pro-quo for Jewish hardliners in his campaign funding
○ moving the US Embassy from Tel Aviv into disputed territory of Jerusalem

[Update-1] Journalist Marcy Wheeler tweeted this morning: ďThe big news is that Flynn lied
to FBI about [Israeli] settlements vote. This is not just RU [Russia], folks. Never has been.Ē

Egypt agreed to postpone a vote on a UN Security Council resolution against Israeli settlements after US President-elect Donald Trump called President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, the Egyptian president's office said.

Egypt had circulated the draft late on Wednesday, demanding Israel halt settlement activity in the occupied West Bank, and a vote was initially scheduled for Thursday.

But it requested that the resolution be postponed after Israel launched a frantic lobbying effort, including calls from Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu for the US to use its veto power at the Security Council to block the resolution.

The US should veto the anti-Israel resolution at the UN Security Council on Thursday.

The guilty plea entered on Friday by Donald Trump's former national security adviser, Michael Flynn, has raised critical new questions not only about the relationship between the Trump team and Russian officials - but also whether Flynn and other members of the Trump transition team were improperly lobbying on behalf of Israel.

Among the statements about which Flynn has admitted lying to the FBI is his depiction of a conversation with the then Russian ambassador, Sergey Kislyak, relating to the run-up to the controversial December 2016 UN security council resolution 2334 on Israeli settlement building - which passed after the Obama administration abstained.

Israel, it was reported widely at the time, had been lobbying the team of then President-elect Trump in an attempt to derail the vote.

And according to the charge sheet against Flynn one of the false statements he has admitted giving to the FBI, was his denial that he had spoken to Kislyak on 22 December 2016 asking Russia to delay the vote on the UN resolution.

British Prime Minister Theresa May condemned a blunt speech this week by Secretary of State John F. Kerry on the state of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, an unusual move that boosted Britain's relations with the incoming Trump administration at the expense of President Obama.

The rare diplomatic spat between Britain and the United States, which was met with surprise by the State Department, highlighted the fast-collapsing influence of the lame-duck White House. It also pointed to a vast reordering of international affairs expected after Donald Trump takes office in three weeks, as U.S. allies position themselves to curry favor in the new order.

In one of the conversations described in court documents, the men discussed an upcoming United Nations Security Council vote on whether to condemn Israel's building of settlements. At the time, the Obama administration was preparing to allow a Security Council vote on the matter.

The activist and majority of support for Israel in the US comes from Fundies and Evangelical Christians whose End Times fantasies depend on the existence of Israel. These credulous nincompoops are also the bedrock of support for the GOP.

I seriously doubt Trump gives two damns about Israel. It's a cheap way to shore up support.

She believed in nothing; only her skepticism kept her from being an atheist. -- Jean-Paul Sartre

Who is willing to admit that Mssrs Flynn and "very senior PTT Official" (quoting from DOJ statement of offense; and surely not Kelly Ann) were in fact carrying out the policy of the Mr Obama's administration? The nation now ought rejoice the peaceful transition of power in those final hours, one would think, if one disposed to overlook just this once Mr Flynn's craven, illicit LIE.

The previous administration had no demonstrable "diplomatic" mission, opposition, intention, or effort to obstruct expansion of Israeli settlements throughout Palestine. To the contrary: some imply. My understanding is, one of distraught president's last orders, 24 Dec 2016, for the US Ambassador Madame Susstein was, as had been the custom, lo, these sixty years, to speak truth to power! Look, yon!

Let us wallow in the perfidy which TRUMP nether regions hath EXPOSED and forced from the speech of this brave woman.

IN TOTAL DEFIANCE OF ISRAEL, THE INCOMING PRESIDENT, AND EVEN MEMBERS OF HIS OWN PARTY President Obama refused to veto a UN resolution condemning Israeli settlements allowing it to pass the security council resoundingly. A rare abandonment of a long held US tenet to have Israel's back.

I'm puzzled. In what way would Clinton have done anything differently? Trump may have secret meetings with some of them, but Clinton had very public meetings with groups like AIPAC. As for moving the Embassy, Obama was an exception - every other candidate had promised to move it. And we still do not know if Trump will actually carry out his threat.

Yes, that's my reaction too; practically every US poltician is in AIPAC's pocket, so what's the big deal?

As for Mueller's investigation; I'm beginning to get the feeling that irrespective of what is revealed, nothing is going to happen to Trump. DC is just gonna yawn and carry on as before. The GOP have stacked the deck too far and it's broken every check and balance in the system.

I'm just curious which particular distraction technique they'll employ to hide from the US electorate that the tax changes will make all of them much much poorer. Even when theose bills come in 18 months from now.

In 1980, Roger Stone and Roy Cohn paid $125,000 bribe to put John Anderson on New York state ballot, dividing the liberal vote for Reagan. Stone bragged about this to reporters years later, and no one blinked pic.twitter.com/YXr5dgXEMs

To any one with a moral compass not exclusively tuned to partisan political interest this question is irrelevant. So, going along with AIPAC becomes an integrity incicator for those lacking other strong motivations, such as religious belief including all whose tradition include messianic teachings, but even there it is an indicator that the individual is unable or unwilling to transcend religious belief and teaching. But the attraction of money probably overrides all other concerns and only reinforces the support of those who are simply bought. And majorities of both Jews and Christians in the USA are critical of Israel's policies in the middle east.

False Statements Regarding FLYNN's Request that Foreign Officials Vote Against or Delay a United Nations Security Council Resolution

4. During the January 24 voluntary interview, FLYNN made additional false statements about calls he made to Russia and several other countries regarding a resolution submitted by Egypt to the United Nations Security Council on December 21, 2016. Specifically, FLYNN falsely stated that he only asked the countries' positions on the vote, and that he did not request that any of the countries take any particular action on the resolution. FLYNN also falsely stated that the Russian Ambassador never described to him Russia's response to FLYNN's request regarding the resolution. In truth and in fact [?], however, FLYNN then there knew the following had occurred:
a. On or about December 21, 2016, Egypt submitted a resolution to the United Nations Security Council ...
b. On or about December 22, 2016, a very senior member of the PResidential Transition Team directed FLYNN to contact officials from foreign governments, including Russian, to learn where each government stood on the resolution and to influence those governments to delay the vote or defeat the resolution.

c. On or about December 22, 2016, FLYNN contacted the Russian Ambassador about the pending vote. FLYNN informed [?] the Ambassador about the incoming administration's opposition ...
d. On or about December 23, 2016, FLYNN again spoke with the Russian Ambassador, who informed FLYNN ...

University of d'Oh BULLETIN

...that if it came to a vote Russia would not vote against [would not VETO] the resolution.

FLYNN influenced no one. FLYNN informed no one. But he LIED about I-forget, and that's very important evidence of I-forget. Perhaps Obama's utterly gratuitous exit from center stage of the UN Board of Approvals?

::

Suck it up. Flynn's getting the Patraeus treatment. Move on. Or back to the emoluments allegations. Dig up another dead body from the cemetery of possible informants.

After all, Ignatius set off the events with this article. The article included two curious details. First, in an update to the story, Ignatius stated as fact that the Russian plane carrying a military choir to Syria had been shot down.

"This official later added that Flynn's initial call was to express condolences to Kislyak after the terrorist killing of the Russian ambassador to Ankara Dec. 19, and that Flynn made a second call Dec. 28 to express condolences for the shoot-down of a Russian plane carrying a choir to Syria."

Perhaps this was a mistake, but no cause for the crash has been reported (and it'd be even more curious if Trump's people knew this was a shoot-down right away, given the lack of public accounting for it). There has been no follow-up about who shot down this plane (and little claim that it was terrorism).

...
Ignatius not only knew of the calls, but he knew enough to ask the question -- which the FBI would later pose to Flynn in an interview -- about whether Flynn had undercut US sanctions. In response to his mention of the calls, other journalists followed up with Mike Pence, which ultimately led to the excused reason for Flynn's firing, that he had lied to Pence about the calls. Frankly, that questioning also clearly led to Flynn correcting his story between February 8 and 9, which suggests he may have reviewed the transcripts in the interim.

While Ignatius' report is mentioned in a WaPo timeline of these events, he's not bylined in either of the twobig bombshells from WaPo on this, even though up to seven journalists are mentioned.

There are two obvious explanations. First, that Ignatius' column, which serves as a mouthpiece for the IC (and especially CIA), is not generally treated in the same way other journalism at the WaPo is. And possibly, specifically in this case, if that reference were treated as reporting rather than speculation, it might lead Trump's leak investigation back to the source that kicked off this leak fest. But by posing it as speculative questioning, it protects that original source.

David, you know as well as I that the Bush Administration doesn't even see the problem, let alone understand it or, heavens, acknowledge it. One cannot see what one isn't looking for. Most of us wish to remove a pebble in our shoe. The Bush motif is to attempt to grind it into dust, with the caveat that subordinates do all the heavy work.

You write "...when President Bush eloquently invokes our values, the world seems to tune out..." Eloquently or hypocritically? How can these words be deemed eloquent if the audience reaction is to ignore? Plus, "...The world seems to tune out..." is a pallid, unspecific description, objectionable in any opinion column.

For President Bush to state that "we do not torture" when he knows that we do and his henchmen are publicly leading the charge to convince Congress to back off and place no restrictions on the use of torture, well, why do you expect the world NOT to disregard such incoherence? .

Finally, your solution is but one step of many that are needed. The task falls to the American public to find such Bush Administration obscenities objectionable and unacceptable.